To which Grushenka replied that she had heard it in other people’s presence, had heard him say it to others, and had also heard it privately from Mitya himself.

“Did he say it to you once or many times in private?” the prosecutor inquired again, and learned that Grushenka had heard it many times.

Ippolit Kirillovich was very pleased with this evidence. Further questioning revealed that Grushenka knew where the money had come from and that Dmitri Fyodorovich had taken it from Katerina Ivanovna.

“And did you ever once hear that the money squandered a month ago was not three thousand but less, and that Dmitri Fyodorovich had kept fully half of it for himself?”

“No, I never heard that,” Grushenka testified.

It was further discovered that Mitya, on the contrary, had often told her during that month that he did not have a kopeck. “He kept waiting for what he would get from his father,” Grushenka concluded.

“And did he ever say before you ... somehow in passing, or in irritation,” Nikolai Parfenovich suddenly struck, “that he intended to make an attempt on his father’s life?” “Ah, yes, he did!” sighed Grushenka.

“Once or several times?”

“He mentioned it several times, always in a fit of anger.”

“And did you believe he would go through with it?”

“No, I never believed it!” she replied firmly. “I trusted in his nobility.”

“Gentlemen, allow me,” Mitya suddenly cried, “allow me to say just one word to Agrafena Alexandrovna in your presence.”

“Say it,” Nikolai Parfenovich consented.

“Agrafena Alexandrovna,” Mitya rose a little from his chair, “believe God and me: I am not guilty of the blood of my father who was killed last night!”

Having said this, Mitya again sat down on his chair. Grushenka rose a little, looked towards the icon, and piously crossed herself.

“Glory be to God!” she said in an ardent, emotional voice, and turning to Nikolai Parfenovich before sitting down, she added: “What he has just said, you must believe! I know him: when he babbles, he babbles, whether it’s for fun or out of stubbornness, but if it’s something against his conscience, he will never deceive you. He will speak the truth directly, you must believe that!”

“Thank you, Agrafena Alexandrovna, you have given my soul new courage!” Mitya responded in a trembling voice.

To the questions about yesterday’s money she replied that she did not know how much there was, but had heard him say to many people yesterday that he had brought three thousand with him. And with regard to where he had got the money, he had told her privately that he had “stolen” it from Katerina Ivanovna, to which she had replied that he had not stolen it and that the money must be given back tomorrow. To the prosecutor’s insistent question as to which money he said he had stolen from Katerina Ivanovna—yesterday’s, or the three thousand spent there a month ago—she stated that he was speaking of the money from a month ago, that that was how she had understood him.

Grushenka was finally dismissed, Nikolai Parfenovich impetuously announcing to her that she could even return to town at once, and that if he, for his part, could be of any assistance to her, for example, in connection with the horses, or if, for example, she wished to be accompanied, then he ... for his part . . .

“I humbly thank you,” Grushenka bowed to him, “I’ll go with that little old man, the landowner, I’ll take him back with me, but meanwhile I’ll wait downstairs, with your permission, until you decide here about Dmitri Fyodorovich.”

She went out. Mitya was calm and even looked quite encouraged, but only for a moment. Some strange physical powerlessness was gradually overwhelming him. His eyes kept closing with fatigue. The interrogation of the witnesses finally came to an end. They moved on to the final editing of the transcript. Mitya got up, went from his chair to the corner, near the curtain, lay down on a large chest covered with a rug, and was asleep in a second. He had a strange sort of dream, somehow entirely out of place and out of time. It seemed he was driving somewhere in the steppe, in a place where he had served once long ago; he is being driven through the slush by a peasant, in a cart with a pair of horses. And it seems to Mitya that he is cold, it is the beginning of November, and snow is pouring down in big, wet flakes that melt as soon as they touch the ground. And the peasant is driving briskly, waving his whip nicely, he has a long, fair beard, and he is not an old man, maybe around fifty, dressed in a gray peasant coat. And there is a village nearby— black, black huts, and half of the huts are burnt, just charred beams sticking up. And at the edge of the village there are peasant women standing along the road, many women, a long line of them, all of them thin, wasted, their faces a sort of brown color. Especially that one at the end—such a bony one, tall, looking as if she were forty, but she may be only twenty, with a long, thin face, and in her arms a baby is crying, and her breasts must be all dried up, not a drop of milk in them. And the baby is crying, crying, reaching out its bare little arms, its little fists somehow all blue from the cold.

“Why are they crying? Why are they crying?” Mitya asks, flying past them at a great clip.

“The wee one,” the driver answers, “it’s the wee one crying.” And Mitya is struck that he has said it in his own peasant way: “the wee one,” and not “the baby.” And he likes it that the peasant has said “wee one”: there seems to be more pity in it.

“But why is it crying?” Mitya insists, as if he were foolish, “why are its little arms bare, why don’t they wrap it up?”

“The wee one’s cold, its clothes are frozen, they don’t keep it warm.”

“But why is it so? Why?” foolish Mitya will not leave off.

“They’re poor, burnt out, they’ve got no bread, they’re begging for their burnt-down place.”

“No, no,” Mitya still seems not to understand, “tell me: why are these burnt-out mothers standing here, why are the people poor, why is the wee one poor, why is the steppe bare, why don’t they embrace and kiss, why don’t they sing joyful songs, why are they blackened with such black misery, why don’t they feed the wee one?”

And he feels within himself that, though his questions have no reason or sense, he still certainly wants to ask in just that way, and he should ask in just that way. And he also feels a tenderness such as he has never known before surging up in his heart, he wants to weep, he wants to do something for them all, so that the wee one will no longer cry, so that the blackened, dried-up mother of the wee one will not cry either, so that there will be no more tears in anyone from that moment on, and it must be done at once, at once, without delay and despite everything, with all his Karamazov unrestraint.

“And I am with you, too, I won’t leave you now, I will go with you for the rest of my life,” the dear, deeply felt words of Grushenka came from somewhere near him. And his whole heart blazed up and turned towards some sort of light, and he wanted to live and live, to go on and on along some path, towards the new, beckoning light, and to hurry, hurry, right now, at once!

“What? Where?” he exclaims, opening his eyes and sitting up on the chest, as if he were just coming out of a faint, and smiling brightly. Over him stands Nikolai Parfenovich, inviting him to listen to the transcript and sign it. Mitya guessed that he had slept for an hour or more, but he did not listen to Nikolai Parfenovich. It suddenly struck him that there was a pillow under his head, which, however, had not been there when he had sunk down powerlessly on the chest.

“Who put that pillow under my head? What good person did it?” he exclaimed with a sort of rapturous gratitude, in a sort of tear-filled voice, as though God knows what kindness had been shown him. The good man remained unidentified even later—perhaps one of the witnesses, or even Nikolai Parfenovich’s clerk, had arranged that a pillow be put under his head, out of compassion—but his whole soul was as if shaken with tears. He went up to the table and declared that he would sign whatever they wanted.